Polar Opposites
by Sparcck
Summary: [moviefic] Jean/Scott/Logan. Mixed-up feelings. 'Nough said.


Polar Opposites  
by [Sparcck][1]

Rating: PG-13 (Mild offensive words, adult situations)  
'Ship: Jean/Logan; Jean/Scott  
Classification: Romance/Angst  
Setting: About six months  
Archive: Kielle, list archives; anywhere else, just drop me a line to let me know where it's going.  
Disclaimer: All characters copyright Marvel and Fox (duh). No own, no harm, no money, no sue.  
Feedback: Please! Send it on over to the address above.

Thanks: To Wendy and Candace, my beta readers.

Dedications: This is for Candace, a wonderful woman and a wonderful beta reader. This story is what it is because of your encouragement, questions, and refining. You realize, of course, that this monster will haunt you forever now, don't you? 'Cause this isn't over. Not by a long shot *g*

Note: Okay, for those who haven't already heard this from me, I've always hated Scott. *PETS glares in Jeanine's general direction* No, no, wait. I've been reading the comic for years, and for some reason (be it impudent youth or my affinity for Wolvie) I just took a dislike to the man, and it stuck. But the movie… oh the movie opened up my eyes to Scott; I actually see him as a character now and not just someone to hate. And would you look at this, I actually identify with him -- Scott's half of this is my favorite part. So this is also for PETS. I hope I do right by you.

* * *

_Polar opposites don't push away  
It's the same on the weekends as the rest of the days  
And I know I should go but I'll probably stay  
And that's all you can do about some things  
_

__

-Modest Mouse

It was the first time she'd ever been attracted to anyone other than Scott. They'd been together for so long that she had all but forgotten there were other men out there -- other men who not only found her attractive, but ones she found attractive, too.

Rather, she _would_ have found them attractive, had she not been with Scott: Handsome, smart, steady, loyal Scott.

__

Stuffy Scott.

She shook her head sharply and corrected her thought. _Dependable Scott._

__

Dull Scott.

Cautious Scott.

Too-uptight Scott.

__

Dammit.

She sighed, rubbed a hand over her eyes, and put down the tests she had been poring over for the past hour. She glanced at the object of her thoughts, who was sitting across the table from her grading his own papers, and hoped she hadn't been broadcasting.

He looked up and flashed her a grin. She smiled back and felt that warm _Scott_ feeling in her stomach. 

_Loving Scott._ That was better. 

But there was a part of her that thought derisively, _Safe Scott_. That was the part that kept a mental picture of Logan in the back of her head ever since she had first seen him brought into the MedLab. 

*

Scott had struggled under the bulk of the man they had known only as Wolverine before the Professor had a chance to scan him, and Jean felt a flash of something unfamiliar as she compared the two men in her head.

Scott was long and slim, lanky arms and legs to complement a lithe torso. Wolverine, on the other hand, was just big: huge arms; large, square hands; a broad chest and a thickly muscled neck. 

Definitely the opposite of Scott. Definitely not safe.

She felt a ripple of attraction curl through her and she had to look down.

As the others left the lab and Wolverine in Jean's care, Scott was frowning and a little out of breath from hauling the larger man up onto the examining table. He frowned even more when she started cutting him out of his shirt.

She caught a stray thought that he failed to block.

__

...better not wake up.

The telepath looked at him sharply and he colored a bit. Jean was better at shielding her thoughts than Scott was. Over the years, after they discovered their psychic rapport, she noticed that he had trouble concealing what he was thinking when he was on the edge of anger or on the edge of orgasm.

Her lips quirked and she had to hide her sardonic mental grin. _Don't need my powers to figure out where he is now._

Out loud, he said simply, "Be careful. I'll be upstairs if you need me." 

Again, Jean caught a stray thought from him, and this time she was the one that blushed. He was worried about her, but not so much about her safety, although she knew that was what he _thought_ he was worried about. 

"Scott!" 

He looked confused for a second, then realized what, exactly, his subconscious had been saying. He got a glimpse of the picture of his fiancée and the Wolverine that he had conjured up and shook his head. 

Jean could almost see the confusion wrinkling his brow behind his visor.

Another stray thought: _Where did that come from?_

"I don't know, Slim." She smiled reassuringly at him. "Just go upstairs."

"But-"

"I'll be fine."

"I know, Jean. But I'm a worrier. You _knew_ that." 

His face softened, the hard edges around his mouth dissolving into a trademarked Scott- Summers-half-smile. She got the mental impression of a wink, his mind brushing ever so lightly against her own. She shivered and laughed out loud. His mind was sexy, always trying to be suave without realizing it.

There was that smile she loved so much, and her stomach flipped pleasantly. "See you upstairs then," he said gently, in the tone he reserved only for her, only for certain moments.

"Yes." She turned back to Wolverine, aware of Scott's eyes on her back for a second longer before he left the room.

Once his shirt was off, she had more of a chance to study him. He was so different from Scott, and her rational mind figured that's why she found the wild-looking man attractive. Surface only. _Come on, Jean, you of all people should know better than that. It's below the surface that matters._

After bringing around a tray of supplies, she stepped to his other side and just looked. He was hairy, _But in a good way_, she thought. Scott didn't have nearly as much hair as this man did. And his skin wasn't as rough. His shoulders weren't as big...

__

Jean Grey! What's the matter with you?

She shoved the thought aside and ran her hand over Wolverine's shoulder tentatively. His flesh was firm under her fingers, the hair not nearly as coarse as she had imagined. Her hand continued down his arm, and she found she couldn't stop herself. She traced the veins in his forearm softly, as if she were afraid of getting caught, down to his hand, where her fingers slid over his knuckles. There was a tugging in her belly that felt uncomfortable but exciting at the same time. She started at the sensation; in the years since she had been at the school, she had only felt that with…

_Scott_. 

__

Trusting Scott.

She let her hand slide off of him and she blinked hard, bringing herself back to the task at hand. _Just do what you're supposed to, Grey. Get your mind out of the gutter._

With hardly a thought, she levitated one of the vials of saline solution off the table and into her hand. She let her thumb brush once, barely touching him, over the skin where his forearm met his bicep. 

As she slid the needle in, a hazy thought ran through her mind: _He's so soft here. How od-_

Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest when he opened his eyes with a snarl. Their eyes met for a moment and Jean found she couldn't move, pinned under his gaze. Then he was suddenly up, pressing her back against him. He was making low sounds in his throat, and had pressed one arm around her neck, effectively cutting off her air supply, knuckles of the other hand flush against her cheek.

Even if she had thought to scream, she wouldn't have been able to. 

__

How had he...

He was frozen for a second, as if waiting for an attack. Jean was so taken aback she couldn't order her thoughts and her mind flung itself out, searching for the man's surface thoughts.

She knew the moment his gaze dropped to the top of her head and the air around them changed. His thoughts were more animal than human, but she knew the tone of them. 

His heart thumped wildly against her back, his chest burning hot through her lab coat. His arms were warm and the hair was soft against her face. She could feel his breath, hot and harsh against her ear, and his scent...

His thoughts were spinning around her head, tangling with her own; want and need flashed through both their minds. She closed her eyes, feeling light-headed and out of control.

Suddenly, as quickly as he had moved the first time, he let her go and was out of the lab.

She coughed violently, the rush of air back into her lungs painful and making her even more light-headed than she already was. She raised a hand to her throat.

__

Still warm.

_For god's sake, girl, get a hold of yourself._ She felt the professor observing the scene from his office and blushed for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. _~I'm sorry~_ she said to him.

He didn't ask what she was sorry for, and for that she was grateful. _~I suspected this might happen. Don't worry, Jean, I'll take care of him. Just come up to my office after you've collected yourself.~_

~Okay, Professor.~

There was a moment's hesitation, and it seemed the Professor was on the verge of saying something more, then the connection closed.

She sat on the floor for a moment longer, wondering at her thoughts and the man who had caused them. She almost didn't want him to stay, afraid that he would cause problems in her finally as-stable-as-possible life.

Almost.

*

"Jean, something wrong?"

Jean snapped her eyes to Scott, snapped back to the present, seeing the frown on his face. He didn't look like he knew what she had been thinking, and she wasn't usually sloppy. But Logan, the Wolverine, had her all mixed up.

"I'm fine, Scott. Just a little out of it." _~Too many tests,~_ she added mentally.

~_I know how you feel.~ _One corner of his mouth lifted in a small grin. "Things are a lot more hectic around here nowadays."

"And _you_ said the more students the better," she teased.

"Well, who would've ever thought _I_ could be wrong?"

Jean laughed out loud, leaning across the table to give him a small kiss, the image of Logan safely locked away in the back of her mind as Scott touched her chin with one long finger and whispered, "I love you, Red."

The kiss turned almost desperate, Scott's tongue searching for hers, and she felt herself spinning into the heady rush that he could always induce in her.

~I love you, too, Slim.~

-- 

He knew what she was thinking about. The look in her eyes, the faint red stain on her cheeks, the ever so slight change in her breathing.

It was that man -- that damn animal. 

He hadn't meant to stare and he knew he had a very thin control over his thoughts. Funny that she hadn't already noticed the look on his face. 

But then again, she was preoccupied.

_Why doesn't she get that look for me?_ Her lips were parted softly, her chest rising and falling a little too quickly; her breath coming in short bursts. He felt a swell of anger and possession that he barely kept in check. _Take it easy, Scott_. A muscle jerked in his cheek and he wondered at his lack of self-control. It had taken him so long to find it, the tremulous balance between his intellect and his emotions. And all it took was this one man to set him back five years.

_Man_, he snorted to himself. _A Wolverine is not a man._

He was speaking before he even realized it. "Jean, something wrong?"

Her gaze swung in his direction, hazel eyes slowly regaining a semblance of focus. He was still frowning, his face so tight he was certain she could see every muscle, every bone standing out, but even he had to loosen up when he felt her speak in his mind.

__

~Too many tests~

Her mental voice was like wind chimes, like water running over pebbles in the bay, like grass rustling in a soft breeze. Sappy and sentimental, but they were the only words he had when it came to her. Jean. His girl.

__

"You gonna tell me t' stay away from yer girl?"

Scott overrode the thought, not wanting Jean to know that he had caught her thinking about _him_, like he had caught her that night in Wolverine's room. 

Not when she was looking at him so earnestly now.

_~I know how you feel~_ he said back, the mental voice coming easily through their link. "Things are a lot more hectic around here nowadays." _After _he_ showed up._

She got an evil glint in her eye. "And _you_ said the more students the better."

He raised one eyebrow. "Well, who would've ever thought _I_ could be wrong?" He pushed gently with his mind, feeling it come into contact with hers, and projected a wink. He felt her mind shiver and his insides turned to water. 

Only with her. 

She leaned forward and he wondered if she knew what she did to him, even after all these years together. He wondered if he did the same for her, if she would ever get that breathless for him. Her lips touched his and for a moment, he could barely think at all.

He touched her chin with his index finger and whispered, "I love you, Red," against her mouth before slipping his tongue inside, her mouth hot and wet and heaven.

_~I love you, too, Slim~_ he heard hazily in his mind. All he could think concentrate on was making her look like _he_ had made her look without even trying. He brought his other hand up to caress the back of her head, twining his fingers through her hair. His tongue tangled in hers and she gasped, turning him on even more.

Now her hands were in his hair and the papers on the table in front of them were completely forgotten.

_~Scott, Scott, Scott…~_ she was saying over and over again, and nothing was better than the feeling of her thoughts as they wrapped around his, the feeling of her hair beneath his hand, her mouth under his. He slit his eyes open to see Jean's beautiful face, her hair floating in tendrils out of the ponytail that attempted to keep it all in place, back-lit by the afternoon sun that was streaming through the picture window.

Suddenly, there was this other thing there with them. It was Wolverine. Logan. Whatever. He could just make it out in the back of Jean's mind. For a second he froze, then pulled back.

"What?" she whispered, already knowing what he had seen.

He was immobilized in his seat. Part of him was so painfully aroused that he wanted to sweep all the papers off the table and haul her up onto it. That was the part that was curiously okay with the picture of Logan she had in her mind. The same part that somehow saw what she saw in Wolverine.

The part that made the more prominent part of him feel sick with worry, anger, and confusion. Worry that Jean would leave him, anger that she was thinking about this other man, confusion over his own lust that doubled when he saw his fiancée and Logan together in his head.

"Scott..." There really wasn't much to be said and she trailed off. 

He felt that flash of possessiveness again; this time, he broadcast it loud and clear and Jean's eyes narrowed. 

"I'm not an object to be possessed, Scott. I love you, but I'm not a _thing_."

__

~But you're mine!~ 

Her eyes turned hard. 

  
Damn. He hadn't meant to project that. His control was slipping and he had to force it back into place.

"The two of you are more alike than either of you want to admit. Protecting your property, your _mate_." She stood and stiffly collected her papers. "I'm going to finish this upstairs."

At times like this, he wished she were right and he _was_ more like Logan, that he could just _act_ and say everything he was thinking, however clumsy, and force her to understand. But no matter how alike she said they were, he set his jaw and said, "I didn't mean to say that."

"But you _did_ say it." Her face softened. "Scott, you have to know how much I love you. Nothing could ever change that." She touched his shoulder.

He was still. His mind, tumbling over itself just moments ago, was reordering itself, righting itself, unable to let go of the careful control he had perfected to protect himself, to be a good leader.

"Okay," he said carefully. "Apology accepted." 

She sighed and her hand fell from his shoulder. He immediately missed its warmth. "Oh, Scott, that wasn't an apology," she said and turned away.

_Shit shit shit._ What was wrong with him? He still couldn't say anything, just watched her leave, closing the door softly behind her. He breathed heavily, his nostrils flaring. He wanted to break things, wanted to tear his hair out, wanted to blast holes through the mansion walls. His eyes stung from the pressure behind them, and he sat stony-faced, staring out the window until he got himself under control.

By the time he went upstairs to see Jean, it was almost dark out, the room lit only by the security lights that flickered on at dusk.

* * *

All original story elements and writing copyright 2000 [Jeanine Schaefer][1]. Please do not distribute this without my permission. If you want to archive it, just let me know; all comments, criticism, flames, marriage proposals, and death threats should be sent to [sparcck@hotmail.com][1].

**101-ism:** [http://members.nerve.com/sparcck][2]

   [1]: mailto:sparcck@hotmail.com
   [2]: http://members.nerve.com/sparcck



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